← New Books Network
New Books Network
Khaled A. Beydoun, "The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims" (U California Press, 2023)
00:59:36
Loading summary
Transcript41 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
Hello and welcome to the New Books Network. My name is Imani Antar and I'm so pleased to welcome Dr. Khed Beydoun today. Professor Khed Beydoun is an Associate professor of Law at the Arizona State University. He's the author of the critically acclaimed book American Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear, co editor of Islamophobia and Law, published by University of Cambridge Press, the New Crusades, Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims, and finally, Eyes on Witnessing Annihilation. Professor Beydoun's research examines the First Amendment race, national security and their intersections. In the book that we will be discussing for today's podcast, the New Crusades, Islamophobia and the Global war on Muslims, Dr. Beidoun details how the American War on Terror facilitated and intensified the network of anti Muslim campaigns unfolding across the world. Dr. Beidouin offers a critical and intimate examination of global Islamophobia and its manifestations in Europe, Asia, the Middle east and regions beyond and in between. Through trenchant analysis and direct testimony from Muslims on the ground, Dr. Beydoun interrogates how Islamophobia acts as a unifying global threat of state and social bigotry, instigating both liberal and right wing hate mongering, whether imposed by way of Hijab bans in France, state sponsored hate speech and violence in India or the network of concentration camps in China. Islamophobia unravels into distinct systems of demonization and oppression across the post 911 geopolitical landscape. So without further delay, I would like to welcome Dr. Beidoun. Dr. Beidou, it is so nice to have you. Thank you for being here today. How are you doing?
- [02:59]
C
I'm good. Alhamdulillah, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited about today's conversation.
- [03:04]
B
Okay, great. So before we delve into the substantive features of this very fascinating and in some cases you know, intimate study of Islamophobia, it's always really helpful to understand the personal and professional trajectory of the writer and scholar. So I just wanted to know, how did you become interested in law and its relation to Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim American. American notions of identity and inclusion?
- [03:31]
C
Yeah, so we're gonna take it back to my childhood now. So I grew up in Detroit. The Detroit area, which you may know in the United States, you know, is home to, you know, very sizable, concentrated, largely war fleeing communities of ab, Arab and Muslim who came to Michigan. And as a consequence of growing up in that community, you know, I not only individually sort of like observed, you know, religious and racial bigotry really early on, but also how the state, you know, whether it was, you know, the city administrators or you know, obviously after 9 11, the federal government was engaging in, you know, anti Muslim occurrence and sort of like legal vectors and ways that at a young age, you know, really crystallized to me that, you know, much of this animus that I was watching by way of, you know, movies or you know, news media was not isolated to those private actors that the government was doing something in particular. And yeah, you know, I grew up like you know, being, you know, a lot of my heroes. I was a different kind of teenager. You know, I was always, I always loved sports. But you know, beyond sort of like athletes being my heroes or musicians, it was always, you know, scholars and intellectuals, you know, whether it was the likes of Edward Said or, you know, James Baldwin, you know, individuals who were trying to really reckon with how the, the law specifically as an instrument in subjugating people, you know, crystallizing that in ways that really resonated with populations really moved me at a young age. And then that sort of like highlighted that a career in either law or academia was something I wanted to pursue.
- [05:31]
B
Thank you for that, Professor Beydoun. I'm really, you know, I'm always kind of interested in, you know, the act of kind of writing and the choices that scholars make in the selection of sources and in the narrative construction and kind of the methodology that you kind of employ depending on your field. So I'm just. I'm interested as a legal scholar, how were the sources and the prevailing methodology for this project different from your earlier works? And how did you find this shift, Particularly when one considers kind of that the bulk of the research in this work, I would say, is kind of ethnographic, and also it was conducted through the COVID pandemic. So I'm just. Before we kind of get into the book itself, just kind of laying that groundwork.
- [06:20]
C
So. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I'm a law professor and I spend the vast majority of my time writing these really peculiar pieces of scholarship called law review articles that are, you know, hyper technical, that are sort of constructed and framed in a way that, you know, lawyers generally consume. Every sentence is footnoted. You're relying largely on legal authority. And. Which is enjoyable for me as, you know, sort of like a lawyer, I guess, because I think very technically, but the process of writing a book, and specifically the book that you and I are talking about is. It's dramatically different. Right. It's an opportunity to sort of like step away from the hyper technical process of writing a law review article and writing in a way that is more liberating in the sense that you have an opportunity to sort of humanize the subjects in ways that are not broadly sort of welcomed within legal scholarship. So, like you said. Yeah, the sort of, like, methodological approach was to put the stories in the faces and the flesh and bone of the subjects that I was addressing in the book forward in ways that superseded the legal authority.
- [07:43]
B
And.
- [07:43]
C
Yeah, so engaging in more prose. It was more creative writing. It was an opportunity to really, you know, sort of, like, inject many of the experiences I had, especially after my first book. You know, the first book sort of like, I guess, like, solidified me as somewhat of a, you know, a public sort of figure around Islamophobia. And as a consequence of that, I was being, you know, invited to speak on Kashmir and being invited to speak on the Uyghur issue, invited to speak on, you know, what was happening in Yemen and what was happening with Muslims across Europe. So this, this, this book that we're talking about was really a unique opportunity to take all that experience, take all those interviews, take all those engagements I had with. With real people and put them forward in a way that I thought would be really appealing to a broader audience, a general audience. So that was the sort of, like, broad thought process and methodology of crafting this book.
- [08:41]
B
Yeah. And I think that you really kind of encapsulate that at the outside of your book where you have that epigraph and it states, this book is about people and not myths. So I think that just really kind of points to what you were just discussing. So throughout this book, you weave the personal really into the political and social landscape that you're examining. For example, when you witness Kulsum, who sees for the first time against the backdrop of kind of American imperial efforts in Kenya. So I just wanted to know if this was an organic process that really kind of unfolded or was it really intentional from the project's inception?
- [09:29]
C
No, it wasn't intentional at all. You know, I went on this sort of, like, mission trip with a Muslim philanthropic organization to Kenya, and specifically an area of Kenya called Wajir, which is largely populated by Somali refugees who had fled as a consequence of poverty, displacement, you know, violence and consume. Like many Somalis, specifically elders, but not only elders, but also young people, by being, you know, directly exposed to, you know, the virulent rays of the sun, were contracting cataracts in ways that were leading toward preventative blindness. Right. And I was asked because at that juncture, again, like, you know, I was building sort of a name in the community. I had, you know, a social media following. And I was asked to be part of this mission trip. And one of the individuals I sort of observed and was tasked with, you know, helping was this elderly woman, Khalsum. And, you know, and when the treatment was applied, you saw how she was able. The preventable blindness that I just discussed was. Was essentially resolved. And it was such, you know, for me, like, you know, we take a lot of stuff. I'm presuming you're Muslim and you live in Canada, which, like, the United States is, you know, you know, I hate using the phrase, but first world economically advantaged. You know, we take things like our vision for granted as a consequence of the healthcare and the economic opportunities that we have. But for me, you know, I mean, just seeing that in a very sort of, like, on an intimate basis was really transformative because it. And it was very metaphoric, right. In the sense that even though this woman who, you know, straddled by, you know, poverty and displacement and the lack of health care, could not see in a literal sense, it really spoke to the kind of political and intellectual blindness that really straddles how the west views Islam and views Muslims like Khalun. And when. When I thought about writing the book, I thought that'd be a really powerful way to sort of like, set it in motion.
- [11:53]
B
Yeah, that was a really powerful passage. I mean, it was. Yeah, it was very. Just one truly felt that they were, you know, with you. So the way that you write in that, that vignette is. Is so captivating. So I just wanted to also, I mean, moving on, this is my last kind of question about just the. The kind of theory behind the work. And then we can kind of get into it. You contend that academic discourse has been really kind rife with a variety of studies and discourses which have sought to theorize and deconstruct Islamophobia. But I've been more reticent to include, and I'm quoting here, the voices of those on the ground who endure it. So this is speaking kind of to the question that I asked at the outset. So this, to me, I mean, I'm speaking myself here, this really seems almost you know, obvious axiomatic that that should be the case. So why hasn't it?
- [12:57]
C
Yeah, I think a lot of it is, you know, sort of just like the. The paternalistic and divided structure of academe, especially, you know, elite academe in the sense that there's sort of, I mean, I'm sure, you know, like there's this notion that, you know, integrating too much narrative, integrating too much firsthand account of the individuals being, you know, subjected to the animus that you're analyzing or dissecting, waters down and sort of erodes the objectivity of the project. So as a consequence of many scholars who are, you know, addressing Islamophobia, occurrence like Islamophobia, what happens is that there's a sort of rift between the project of crafting theory, right. And that theoretical project being sort of disconnected or dissonant from the actual communities or populations that they're, you know, looking to sort of like, reckon with, with the theory. And for me, I've always been rebellious against that because the intellectual tradition that I come from, you know, is not sort of like a liberal civil rights law or, you know, sociology or anthropology. It's critical race theory. Right. And one of the cornerstones of critical race theory. And back to your first question. The reason I decided to go to law school versus getting a PhD or whatever, was because of how moved I was by critical race theory and sort of like rebuffing that idea that you can't integrate the personal narratives of out groups or accosted communities. There was an article that I read from a pioneer and critical race theorist by the name of Richard Delgado, who wrote an article called A Plea for Narrative. I think was published in the Michigan Law Review sometime in the 80s. It's a brilliant piece. And basically in that piece, he essentially stated that the theory or the dominant narrative is not doing justice to the actual experiences of marginalized communities unless and until you integrate the experiences of those marginalized communities within the intellectual project. And that really resonated powerfully with me when I was thinking about a career in academia specifically addressing what was happening to Muslims in the post war on terror context. And then he wrote a second piece that I thought it's not necessarily a companion piece, but to me it reads like a companion article. It's called the Imperial Scholar. How as a consequence of these really fancy academics only citing themselves, it sort of sustains this idea that you have to remain objective, neutral, and distant from the experiences of real people. So, you know, in, in my, you know, I guess, like, maybe, maybe I'd be teaching at Harvard Law School if I didn't, if I listened to the. To what those fancy people were saying. But for me, like, it came natural as a critical race theorist to want to sort of, like, disrupt the ways in which, you know, mainstream or in group legal scholars go about constructing what they deem to be objective or neutral.
- [16:21]
B
Yeah, I feel like you just, I mean, characterize much of grad school in that response because. And I'm definitely going to look into those articles because that's something that I have always found challenging to kind of transcend because you are, of course, bound to kind of the conventional parameters of your study, but at the same time, you recognize that there is more than simply what you've kind of theorized. So that's why I just really appreciate this orientation. So thank you, Professor Beydoun. So now moving to kind of your, I mean, the more kind of substantive features of the book. I mean, in your chapter on your time in Wager Kenya, I just wanted to know how you would characterize radicalization theory and how does that kind of figure into your time there and kind of what you witness and.
- [17:16]
C
Yeah, so, like, you know, I mean, in, in the last decade, I guess, the latter part, when the United States and the war on terror was being presided over by, you know, a progressive Democratic administration led by President Obama, you know, you might recall, you're probably younger than I am, but you might recall that fancy speech that Obama gave when he went to Egypt, remember Cairo Al Azhar University. And Obama was promising that, you know, his administration, beginning in 2009, would sort of disavow and do away and retrench the sort of legal fervor of the war on terror. But if we play Monday, you know, Monday morning quarterback and go back and analyze his language and then analyze the policy, much of what he actually advanced specifically by way of radicalization theory was just as, if not arguably more destructive than, I think, what the Bush administration. And even in some respects, by way of policy, what I think the Trump administration had furthered by way of what I qualify as structural Islamophobic law. And above that was, above all was this policy of counter radicalization, which in the United States was called countering violent extremism, and obviously was peddled globally in places like Kenya, the Middle East, Europe, by the State Department, by the CIA, packaged in different names. But it was still very much the same, this notion that, you know, sort of, if we are able to sort of contain and constrain the religious piety, the political dissidents, the specific associations and assemblies of Muslims, that we could discipline and de. Radicalize them. Right. And what's fundamentally sort of bigoted about radicalization theory is that it. I kind of see it like I saw you like, you like we might see eugenics back in the day, you know, because the. The fundamental prism of sort of like scrutinizing Muslim identity is through this lens or rubric of terrorism. There's always an analysis of the Muslim, whether in the language of Mahmoud Mamdani, the good Muslim or the bad Muslim or the Muslim that, you know, could redeemed or the Muslim that could not be redeemed was always inextricably tied through this, this lens of radicalism, of, of terrorism. And that's what radicalization theory purports. Right. But even more than that, I think what was really sort of like damaging for Muslims, especially from a, you know, a constitutional sort of like, liberties perspective here in the United States, is there was this broader economy around radicalization theory that we could sort of like, employ and utilize the good Muslims in ways that further the security state. Right. So the individual who was, you know, willing to sort of like, function as an informant in a specific, let's say if he measured in the GTA area, right. That individual was a good Muslim because he essentially is serving or she is serving as these sort of like eyes and ears of the counter radicalization project of the state, but they cease to be good Muslims for when they decide that they no longer want to take on that role.
- [20:42]
B
Right.
- [20:42]
C
And that is what's fundamentally, you know, problematic about radicalization theory, is that it is always sort of like scrutinizing the. Again in the United States, but even more broadly speaking, if we sort of extend, you know, sort of like liberties like free speech or free exercise of religion or the right to, you know, peaceably assemble, if we view those liberties from the vantage point of radicalization theory, you Muslims cannot exercise those liberties in ways that are sort of in alignment with their convictions. Right. They have to exercise those liberties in ways that serve the security state. And radicalization theory function as sort of a, you know, a liberal security conduit in enforcing and imposing that upon Muslims in the United States, but also amongst like, you know, Klein or proxy states that enlisted in the broader project of, you know, carrying out counter radicalization projects, and Kenya is one of them.
- [21:39]
B
That's. That was a. Yeah, really excellent response and helpful. So I was just. My next question is just really looking at kind of the way that you elucidate the ways in which the acts of terror against targeted communities are accompanied by a dialectic, an ideology which is kind of transformed into law and deployed by the state. So how was kind of, we're looking at these kind of ideologies, these dialectics that are constructed. How was the long standing concept of manifest destiny employed in the political rhetoric following 9 11?
- [22:22]
C
Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question. I hadn't thought about it in those sort of specific terms, but it makes, you know, for me like you, you can't divorce American history from what's happening in the now. Right. So for instance, the United States has always been a settler colonial nation. And I'm sure native scholars, you guys call them first nation, right? In Canada. I spent a year and a half in Toronto. But it was such a long time. And sometimes I would say certain things or like labels and people would look at me all crazy like, what's this guy talking about? So I know there's like a difference in sort of like language around this stuff in Canada, but you know, like, I mean, like Canada, Canada also being a settler colonial nation in settler colonial nations, I think at inception, but also, you know, sort of in the present moment. You know, are always sort of keen on expanding their sort of like territory in terms of geographic means, but also in terms of like, influence. Right. And global influence in the United States, I think is the archetypal sort of, you know, model. And it's obviously become more, more robust in the last several months with Donald Trump. Right. Marching into Venezuela and maybe Iran and Greenland and so on and so forth. But the, but the war on terror, to me was very much an American sort of like Manifest Destiny crusade. Right. And that's what George Bush called it. It was an opportunity to not necessarily stretch American geographic borders, but an opportunity to expand American, you know, geopolitical borders. And that expanse was obviously bent on a series of things. Part of it was economic, right. Accessing oil. Part of it was, you know, entrenching regional influence in the Middle East. Part of it was securing the best interests of Israel, its greatest ally in the region. But part of it was sort of like, you know, selling this sort of like, new world civilizational order that people like Samuel Huntington, you know, were talking about years before 9, 11, where the United States, you know, sort of like, assumed the mantle of, you know, you know, sort of like being the global police of civilization against the oppositional enemy that was Islam and Muslims. And that very much. You know, again, maybe not a geographical Manifest Destiny project in the way that we know it historically. We're moving into Alberta, British Columbia, California, New Mexico, and taking it over from the natives and the Mexicans who had lived there. But very much was an imperial project. Right. And I think. Have you read Deepakumar's book, Deepak Kumar's book on media studies scholars? So she, she frames Islamophobia in that way. And I think it's a very sort of like, compelling definition to think about Islamophobia on a global scale as an imperial project. And, and based on Kumar's framing as Islamophobia being imperial, it obviously aligns very nicely and neatly with the way we think about Manifest Destiny.
- [25:37]
B
Yeah. I mean, you explore her. Her concept of Islamophobia as an imperial project in your. In the, in this study. So I, I appreciate that. Thank you. Dr. Beydoun, you argue at one point in your. In this compelling book that Orientalism is the mother of Islamophobia. So why do you make this assertion? And in what ways are the two intricately connected? That one constitutes the. And you say epistemological lifeline of the other?
- [26:12]
C
Yeah. You know, this. This is something I've debated with many scholars across many disciplines, as, you know. You know, for instance, Edward Said's daughter often says that we don't need the term Islamophobia. We can just use Orientalism because Orientalism has legs and resonance in, in the now. Right. But to me, I think that I view them not necessarily as distinct, but I. I view Islamophobia as being the sort of like modern slash postmodern emanation or spawn of Orientalism. And the reason why I remember when I first wrote my first Law Review article trying to frame what Islamophobia was in the Columbia Law Review. And I sort of surveyed many professors and scholars before writing and just asking them, do you think that we need a sort of like, distinct standalone treatment on Islamophobia? And their events obviously works before mine, right? Like the Runnymede study in the late 90s defined Islamophobia out of the UK. Other scholars across other disciplines reckoned with defining it. But to me, what makes it distinct, to be frank with you, and maybe this is sort of like just what's the word? We always think what we study is most important. But, but lawyers, I think, are guilty of that more than anybody else. But, but I, but to me, I, I think that, look, Orientalism rose out of comparative literature, right? And that was the sort of like root source that drove Edward Said to construct this grand theory of Orientalism. For me, the War on Terror specifically was a legal disciplinary project, right? It was a campaign, a crusade, whatever it is you want to call it, that was made possible by law and by legal power specifically. And as a consequence of that being the sort of animating locus of what was happening in real time post 9 11. To me, I view Islamophobia as being a fundamentally legal project enabled by not only legislation, law and policy, like the Patriot act or the Muslim ban or counter radicalization policing, but also by way of transformation of governmental structures to enable the imposition of law. And even more than the imposition of law, the way in which we can use law to sort of impose these mistruths that are rooted in legal sort of objectivity, like terrorism. What the hell does terrorism even mean? Right? I think that I'm reaching a point in my life where we have to, as sort of critical scholars, divest from the language of even using terrorism or counterterrorism because it really means nothing. It's all selectively applied, right? But what makes it sort of like, feel like it's objective and what makes the state able to sell it through its public and private sort of conduits is that it's based in law. And what's powerful about the law is not only what's sort of contained within the four corners of the document, but what scholars like Naomi Mezzi talks about the coercive power of law, right? That not only does it sort of like ordain citizens that you have to Follow it, but it also mobilizes citizens to believe in it and then deputizes them to partake in its, furthering its project. And we see that very vividly in the, in the war on terror. Right. Like, what was one of the cornerstone sort of like deputizing policies of the war on terror is this thing called see something, say something, right? Mobilizing citizens into vigilante or deputy actors on the part of the state. So for me, the way in which I see Islamophobia sort of emanating from Orientalism is that it became fundamentally a legal project enforced by the state. And I might be wrong, but that's how I feel. But, but I might, I mean, I don't know, I might be wrong.
- [30:10]
B
Yeah, I appreciate that. You, in your chapter, Professor Bey Dune on the the BJP and inflammatory Islamophobia and his political rhetoric, you explore the CAA or the Citizenship Amendment Act. How, how did the CAA redefine the parameters of Indian citizenship?
- [30:34]
C
So, and I'll say this before I answer that question specifically. I think, I think, I think for me, like, you know, being rooted in the United States and doing this work in the United States, one of the, one of, one of the fundamental sort of, of aims I had with the book was to sort of address cases of global Islamophobia that were receiving what I thought was requisite attention within scholarly discourses, but also within advocacy spaces, which is why I became, you know, very keen on speaking on the BJP and the rise of Narendra Modi and obviously Islamophobia in India. And when I was learning about what was unfolding in India, I had a chance to visit India before writing the book and was developing great rapport with activists on the ground, not only in India, but in India, Indian occupied Kashmir. And I was really sort of moved by the courage of the advocates on the ground who in my opinion, were facing a more violent and draconian form of Islamophobia than I think we see here in North America. But I also was beginning to see parallels, right, because I think that we often think about these like, populist leaders around the world who sort of like mind from anti Muslim era, you know, tropes and stereotypes and narratives in ways that are isolated from one another or in a vacuum. But I think Narendra Modi was really sort of like tracking what Donald Trump was doing. And there was a sort of like, symbiosis going on between them in terms of the kind of policies that they thought would be effective. And obviously the history with Islam is dramatically different in India than it is here in the United States. But to me, it felt like the Citizenship Amendment act was, was Modi's version of the. The Muslim ban. Right. It was a way to sort of reclaim a, you know, an ethnic definition of Indian identity in the ways that, you know, Trump was trying to do so in the United States around white Christian supremacist ideation. And the way that legislation was sort of advanced was technically speaking, that individuals from specific Muslim majority countries, neighboring India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, could not become naturalized citizens. That is the narrow charge of that law, but that that law had far broader and over inclusive ambitions. What it was also seeking to do, if you were tracking what was happening with regard to Islamophobia closely in India, were there were large segments of the Indian Muslim population who were bona fide citizens, but as a consequence of living spaces, as a consequence of poverty, as a consequence of the failure of the administrative state, did not have documentation to prove that they were citizens, even though they had lived there forever. So the CEA was also being deployed against these rural, impoverished, working class, disaffected Muslim Indians to claim that they were in fact Indian citizens, but in fact foreigners. So the CAA was also being enforced upon them to strip them of citizenship as part of this sort of like, broader architecture of Islamophobia, legal Islamophobia, that Modi was constructing, and they're still constructing this morning. You might have saw in Kashmir that. I'm not sure if you saw it, but there's this really prestigious medical school in occupied Kashmir, and the vast majority of the admittees were Muslim students, I mean, which is not surprising, reflecting the demographics of the area. Right. And as a consequence of that, the Modi government revoked the accreditation of the medical school.
- [34:29]
B
Yeah, that's. I didn't see that, but now I'm definitely going to look into that further. So thank you for that, professor beidouin, and that really illustrious explanation of what that is and how it's continuing to impact the population. I'm really kind of interested in, of course, the experience of exile. And you characterize exile as endless sadness and perpetual flux. I mean, and you also kind of, of course, explore Edward Said's notion of exile too, and how that kind of really impacts and influences his own. His own kind of intellectual work. So how, through the story of Fatima and the Rohingya refugees, does the experience of exile come into sharp relief? And in what ways is it tied to Islamophobia?
- [35:24]
C
You know, in many ways. And I wrote this book before the genocide in Gaza, obviously, which made the sort of like, motif of exile far more, you know, prominent and far more sort of like, intimate than it was when I was writing the new Crusades. Obviously, exile is one of the cornerstone sort of experiences of Palestinian people. And people like Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish write powerfully about the experience of exile. But the Rohingya genocide or ethnic cleansing, you know, again, you know, unfolded in ways that rather overlooked by Western and even Muslim American spectators. It was, you know, really horrific crucible for Rohingya, you know, through its sort of duration, in ways that we didn't fully appreciate as it unfolded, but we finally were able to learn about its horrific dimensions when. When I, speaking for my. Myself, when I. I read, read about it, examined human rights reports, read articles, but the sort of, like, the depths of its horror didn't really sort of weren't really distilled until I met people like Falk me. And I learned the sort of brutality that women, girls, boys and men who were displaced en masse had experienced. And exile was just the tip of the iceberg. Right. Exile, in many respects, that sort of like, existential experience of exile is the final stage of the ethnic cleansing and the persecution that people experience. Right. The previous passages that precede exile are far more, you know, harrowing, whether it's the experience of sexual violence, you know, learning through her and other people that I spoke to, seeing, you know, young infants being murdered by state army, having entire villages burned down, you know, being disconnected from. From your children or parents in a moment's notice with, you know, one individual in the family being flung off into somewhere like Malaysia or Indonesia where the other person is in Chicago. This kind of like, fracture that precedes the experience of exile, you know, really sort of like, spoke to the. The crucible that was the ethnic cleansing experience of Rohingya. And, you know, Fatima was one of the mouthpieces that I was fortunate to learn from.
- [38:07]
B
Thank you, Professor Bey Dune, for that. In your chapter on the brutal and inhumane terrorist attack in Christchurch in New Zealand, in which 51 Muslims were murdered, you interrogate. I mean, I think a really important issue is, you know, why is there little political action against the global movement of transnational white supremacy, whereas the war on terror continues to concentrate on this kind of idea, global Islamic terrorism. So what. What would be your kind of thoughts on that? Especially since that chapter really, of course, personifies it in such an important way. So I was just. I was wanted to hear your thoughts on.
- [38:55]
C
Yeah, that.
- [38:56]
B
Yeah.
- [38:56]
C
And since then, there's been a lot of literature and a lot of advocacy around, you know, what. What we might call white supremacist terrorism here in the United States. There's a professor by the name of Darren Johnson who writes at. Who teaches at Howard Law School here in the United States who's written very powerfully on global white supremacist terrorism. And I think it. After the January six debacles here in the United States, it became more focal even to state actors. But, yeah, I think what happened in New Zealand sort of like, for me was in auditing of the moral and legal bankruptcy that was driving the war on terror. And this sort of idea that terrorism was intrinsically and exclusively, you know, a Muslim phenomenon. And then when individuals who were non Muslim and specifically white and Christian had engaged in terroristic activity, there were generally two responses. Number one, that it wasn't terrorism because terrorism has a specific political and racial meaning. And second, that these individuals were, you know, acting individually as solo actors. Right. They weren't part of a broader collective as a consequence of what they looked like. And it spoke to the racial project behind the war on terror and terrorism that, you know, you know, Muslims, even when acting as individuals, there's always a presumption that working. We're working as part of a broader block or network or sleeper cell, however that isn't. The presumption is actually the opposite. That, you know, one of the greatest sort of, like, benefits of white privilege, scholars like Cheryl Harris might say, is this sort of, like, privilege of individuality that regardless of what it is you do, it's only a reflection of. Of you and yourself alone. And that speaks to what happened with Tarrant in New Zealand, that even though his manifesto, the evidence, his rhetoric, you know, spoke to him being even loosely part of this broader sort of great replacement theory that was, you know, keen on weaponizing that theory in ways that were hyper violent. There was still this, you know, reticence to view him and other white terrorists, Dylann Roof, all these guys as terrorists. These were individual violent actors. And I think what happened in New Zealand really manifests the racial rift and the racism driving how we frame terrorism.
- [41:43]
B
Yeah, and the way that you begin that chapter is so compelling because you begin it, of course, through the prism of the marriage of Hosna and her husband and what happens to this. This victim. So it's not even that you kind of put that concept of white supremacy at the forefront of your narrative. It's really the. At the forefront of the narrative is their experience. And what, you know, happens. So it's. It's both tragic, but I think that it also leaves space for us to kind of.
- [42:18]
C
Yeah, and I'm glad you raised that. It took me back to what. When I was writing that. That chapter. Right. What I wanted to do. And the reason I did that is because there's. Especially when the violent actor is a. Is a white person and a white man, there's always this, like, media penchant to flesh out every dimension of his or her life in ways that are humanizing. However, the Muslim victims are reduced and flattened to nameless and anonymous statistics. Right. That's the sort of, like, rubric that is generally sort of, like, portrayed by Western legacy media outlets. So for me, I wanted to flip the script. I wanted to humanize the victim.
- [42:52]
B
Yeah. Thank you, Professor Rajan. And you do that. I have a couple of more questions. I don't want to take too much of your time, which you've been so generous with. This is kind of. I hope it's not too personal, but, I mean, at some junctures of this very kind of really powerful examination of Islamophobia and the different geographical spaces that it manifests. I mean, you look at China, New Zealand, as we said, the Banyas of France, it seems almost like it's like a personal odyssey of sorts, and the ways in which you interpret the experiences and the struggles of those who have been directly impacted by the heavy weight of Islamophobia in the respective countries and their locales. And then really kind of interwoven in these very detailed portrayals of Islamophobia is an autobiographical component which we talked about. So you share the story of your upbringing and kind of the moral and spiritual fortitude of your Egyptian mother and the challenges that your family experienced in the US and even more, you know, as you're in, like, your formative years as a young boy in Beirut following the 1982 war. So I'm getting to my question now. How do you balance these two poles, the autobiographical with the political and social analysis, in such a way that one does not eclipse the other? Because I don't think it does. So just wondering how that's really kind of. We're circling back, but just wondering. Yeah, yeah.
- [44:27]
C
When I. When. When I. You know, again, I think what's. What's really liberating about writing these books, you know, as. Apart from, like, legal scholarship, is that it enables a kind of creativity in an injection of narrative in ways that I think give the project a lot more texture and make it A lot more, you know, appealing to. To readers. And I think that. That when I write these books, I'm not necessarily part of the audience is obviously to speak to Muslim readers, but part of the audience is part of the strategy is to also think about the ways in which I can sort of persuade or mobilize, you know, non Muslims or individuals who are sort of suspicious of us to, you know, want to learn about our stories. And the best way to do that, I think, is to inject narrative and sometimes even personal narrative. So when I set out to write these books, it's never been, to be honest with you, I think that in many ways, I'm a private person. I never make it a deliberate sort of aim to want to inject myself or my story into the analysis. But in the process of writing about specific ideas or themes, it becomes impossible not to do so, especially because what's. And for me, I think that what. What was going back to the first question you asked, I came. I came to law school at a time when a lot of the scholarship in the post 911 context was compelling, trenchant. However, it lacked a sort of like, what's the word? Empathy that felt sort of distant to me because it was being crafted by scholars who weren't from our community. So they could analyze the law, they can analyze the civil rights infractions, the injustices that were doled out in ways that were brilliant and, in fact, even more brilliant than I could, perhaps, in some ways. But what they couldn't do was sort of like, inject the feeling and the emotion and the empathy. And for me, I wanted that to carry over in my books specifically, because whether I like it or not, I've been interlocked in these very issues that I analyze on a micro and macro level, whether it's pursuing employment at a law school or whether it's seeing my immigrant Egyptian mother going through the struggles that she went through in the post 911 context, specifically by being a Mahajiba, you know, struggling with being a single parent, being on welfare, standing in sort of like, you know, government lines, waiting to speak to an administrator that viewed her as sort of a foreign immigrant. And I was her young child who had to translate for her in that context. Right. These were all real experiences that don't speak to how we think about Islamophobia in the sort of, like, hard sense, but I think very powerful sort of themes of Islamophobia, at least, were being woven in my mind as a consequence of those softer experiences. And obviously the war in Lebanon Right. Once we sort of like, you know, pair that experience with what's happening in Gaza. Yeah. I mean, like, for me, you know, I could sit back and, you know, analyze what was happening in Gaza in ways that were. As a third party observer. But, you know, having gone through the experience of living through war in Lebanon and Israeli occupation, there was a. There was an empathy that I think that. But if I chose to extract that from the analysis, I feel as if I would be doing a disservice to the reader, but also a disservice to the analysis.
- [48:12]
B
Yeah. Thank you, Professor Ray Dune. I really appreciate that. I appreciate your candor and that response. So now just kind of closing up. I mean, I have a lot of other questions that I could ask, but I don't think, unfortunately, not this time, but maybe. Oh, I'll have you on another time. So it's really, it's been, you know, it's sometimes challenging, I think, in a study like this to find paths of resistance or kind of a rejection of this xenomophobic discourse, even at a communal level, you know, the forging of alternative futures. But near the end of the work, you articulate a really powerful sentiment that leaves the reader conceptualizing, I think, something, you know, possible, you say, or. Writing is writing. Writing is writing. Writing is writing. One of the best days. On the best days. All three. So can you reflect on this passage for us and how it carves out a space of product, productive action for, for readers?
- [49:18]
C
Yeah, those, those words come from Nigerian poet Teju Cole. And when I read that, I think. I read that. I think he might have, like, like tweeted that in 2015 or something. So it's been like a decade since, during my days when I was really active on Twitter. And Cole is a very powerful writer and poet, but it really spoke to me about the, you know, why I love writing so much and why there's a real. Why I have a real passion for writing in that writing is not only a cathartic sort of exercise, but it's also a. A prescriptive exercise, but also an exercise that can galvanize and mobilize others to see the world in the ways that you think are just and correct. And to me, the. What I find sublime about those words is that we've seen them sort of like, come to pass in the last several years through the power of. Of writing in its various forms and mediums. Right. So when we, when we talk about Reza, for instance, the fact that citizen journalists could use their social media platforms to Portray and project through images and words, counter narratives about Palestinian not only like, resistance. Right. But Palestinian life and Palestinian joy and Palestinian mundaneness in ways that can mobilize millions upon millions of people speaks to the power of writing. The fact that you can, and we've seen a lot of title changes, sizable changes in the last several years since writing the book that has been achieved through the power of writing in ways that, that, you know, the law or legacy media or soft power is wielded by those presiding over power cannot change people's minds. Reza speaks to that. The ways in which young people are turning against, you know, authoritarian governments speaks to that. The ways in which, you know, new models of resistance being forged through digital channels speaks to that. I think one thing that I struggle with being like an old head academic now is that I wish more young folks would read books and write books and people like you and I would sort of like matriculate into places of learning at a higher clip. So even though writing on digital channels can be redemptive and prescriptive, I wish it was happening more on a structural level. That would be my sort of minor critique or tweak of what I just said.
- [52:10]
B
Yeah. Well, thank you. I agree, Professor Beidouin, with that. It's really transformative, the power of writing. And you capture that really well in the entire study. So thank you. I wanted to just quickly close with maybe. I mean, of course, it's been three years since this monograph came out. So what do you think has. I mean, and as you said, Gaza and genocide in Gaza, all that, of course, colors the analysis differently. So I'm just wondering, how do you feel what has changed with regards to the global war on terror and the perduring existence of Islamophobia?
- [52:56]
C
Yeah, I think the genocide in Gaza was definitely a flashpoint in many ways. I mean, you saw after October 7th how Netanyahu and the Israeli war machine was really using the language of the war on terror in ways to sort of justify and advance their objectives in Gaza, but also their objectives beyond Gaza, their objectives in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, this broader vision of Greater Israel. So in many respects that could have been a standalone chapter in the book had I written it after the genocide. How the war on terror and the language of Islamophobia has been fully co opted by. By the Israeli government. And it's not novel because they had used it obviously and deployed it before October 7, but it became obviously far more robust and definitely genocidal after October 7th. I mean, for me, I think one of the. Maybe a. Maybe a good way to finish is one of the most lurid portrayals of Islamophobia, I think, in recent time was. I mean, do you remember this picture that the Israeli army rolled out of? I think it was like two dozen Palestinian men from Gaza. They were stripped naked, blindfolded, hands around their back, and there were various portraits. They were stand. They were sort of like partitioned in a very organized fashion, standing up, and then they were lined up almost if. As if they were prostrating, getting ready to perform. Sujood. Right. That, to me, was the most sort of damning illustration of how state actors try to pedal Islamophobia to mobilize publics in support of the most gruesome and horrific forms of war and genocide. Right. Because the Israeli army knew, like the American army knew decades earlier in Iraq, that just by virtue of showing this row of Arab brown Muslim men that they didn't have to say anymore to sell the public that these were terrorists. They had no names, they had no backgrounds, they had no faces. But none of that even mattered because they were Arab, they were Muslim, they were from Palestine. And the Israeli government that we consider to be allies was telling us that they were terrorists, and that was enough. And that speaks to the sort of traction of Islamophobia. But in many respects, I think under this current sort of global order spearheaded by Netanyahu and Trump, that Islamophobia is becoming far more violent and nefarious than it was even when I wrote the book.
- [55:39]
B
Thank you, Professor Bedouin. So can you tell us about what comes next for you? Any other projects that are on the horizon?
- [55:50]
C
Yeah, you know, so I'm writing a series of law review articles. I'm one of them. And I know I'm coming to Toronto, so inshallah, we'll have a chance to talk about that when I'm there. A piece on liberal Islamophobia, sort of using Zahran Mundani's mayoral campaign as a template for thinking about how Islamophobia also rises from the left. Liberal, progressive actors. Like I said earlier, I'm a big sports fan, soccer fan, football fan, whatever it is you want to call it. And I'm working on a sort of. Inshallah, this summer after the World cup in North America, I'm working on a monograph focusing in on the intersection of politics, race, religion, and global soccer.
- [56:28]
B
Well, I know I won't be the only one to say that I look forward to those projects and seeing them come to fruition. And I so appreciate your time and thank you again, Professor Beydoun, for coming on today.
- [56:41]
C
Thanks for having me.